


Keepsake

by under_a_linden_tree



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Aziraphale is a scribe, Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Books, Canon Compliant, Crowley is a knight, First Kiss, Historical, Literature, M/M, Middle Ages, Secret Relationship, a bit of courtly romance, and discussions thereof, but in the 1200s, except not quite because, throw a bunch of medieval tropes into a blender and here we go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23619997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/under_a_linden_tree/pseuds/under_a_linden_tree
Summary: When Crowley stays at a friend's castle, he gets into a discussion about love with Aziraphale and his host. What he doesn't expect is that theory can soon turn into reality - but then Aziraphale asks him for a clandestine meeting. Things start to change between them more quickly than either of them could have expected.Sometimes you just have to turn a love poem into a fic.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 59





	1. Hidden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, a medieval lit lecture can be unexpectedly inspiring.
> 
> A great thank you to akinmytua and Lurlur for beta-reading and reassurance.

“Have you ever heard of Walther?” the angel asks.

His white-blonde curls stand up at odd angles, the result of yet another almost lightless night over a manuscript, back hunched and sleeve dipping into the inkpot.

“Can’t say I have,” the demon replies, snapping the book in his hand shut.

Aziraphale drops his stylus and black dots splatter across the desk. He stares at them for a moment, then wills them away.

“You absolutely must have - Count Friedmar is very fond of his works. He has them recited at his dinners, well, the _minnesang_[1] at least.”

Crowley’s attention flickers towards the parchment on Aziraphale’s desk. “Is that what you’re copying? Love songs?”

There’s something oddly amusing about it. An angel, a being made to love, transgressing the rules by writing about the very same thing so innate to his core. For a moment, Crowley wonders what the poems would sound like spoken in his soft voice, if there would be a tremble to it, anything to betray that he shouldn’t say them.

“I don’t think Heaven would be all too keen about them. I’m supposed to copy political poetry and edifying literature. Spread the ideals of a good and virtuous life et cetera,” the angel says, a dutiful line between his brows.

“Is that a yes or a no? Didn’t quite catch that, I'm afraid.”

“Well, if you _must_ know-”

Aziraphale does not continue the thought, but he leans back and gives Crowley a clear view of what he is working on. The parchment’s decorated with a red and gold initial, vines twirling around it gently. Aziraphale’s handwriting framing it is neat, deep black ink on ivory ground, and the lines Crowley can glance at seem far from edifying. A knight, a young lady, some dancing and a bed of roses...

“There’s supposed to be a commentary, some interlinear glosses. It’s a shame to ruin the manuscript that way.”

Crowley raises an eyebrow. “What, you mean an edifying commentary - on _that_?”

Aziraphale tries for a wobbly polite smile. “They manage it on the Song of Songs, too.”

It’s a marvel, really. How something erotic can be turned into a devotional text, how all its romance and tenderness can be denied, subverted into a duty to God, a higher force, a church.

_Oh._

Crowley can see why this is a task suitable for an angel like Aziraphale.

* * *

Crowley stays at Count Friedmar’s palas on occasion. The count is a pleasant enough man, cultured and rich, with a sense for fine wine and tournaments, and he owns a well-stocked library.

And if that weren’t reason enough to frequent the place, there’s a scriptorium, a small and cosy room that is graced by the warming presence of an angel. An angel with the heavenly missive to spread ethical and moral wisdom, but who copies love poems instead.

Friedmar is an excellent host as well, far be it from Crowley to decline an invitation. His dinners are lavish, and his entertainment is the very height of taste and fashion. Courtly romance is still popular, has been for the past couple hundred years. It follows Crowley around, from Britain’s first Arthurian legends to the French romanciers and now the German minnersänger. Those troubadours and their songs are a landmark of Friedmar’s banquet hall.

It’s different though, seeing them and knowing that the sheets they read from were copied by Aziraphale’s hand.

* * *

“Good Sir Crowley, I am very happy to see you here,” Friedmar says one of these nights and pulls him out of his reveries. “Has your latest _aventiure_[2] gone well? Slain a dragon yet?”

The red-cheeked count chuckles and Crowley plasters a false smile onto his face.

“Not a dragon, no, but something very close to it,” he says.

It’s not a exactly lie. Crowley gets recalled down to Hell from time to time, gets another missive to cause dissent and envy. He waves it off as going on an adventure and most of his human associates immediately imagine him on a long hunting trip, or on a tournament or on a travel to mysterious oriental cities. The imagination of humans is a fantastic thing.

Friedmar laughs full-heartedly now. “I _am_ glad that you made it out of the beast’s clutches, but let me get to the point quickly: I hear you’re acquainted with Meister[3] Aziraphale?”

 _Now_ we’re getting on thin ice.

“Err- yeah, you could say so,” Crowley decides.

“How fortunate!” Friedmar claps his hands. “Then you absolutely _must_ help resolve our argument. If you’re a friend of his, you must be a connoisseur of arts as well.”

He isn’t given time to object before the Count drags him off towards the head table, where Aziraphale sits, hand laid protectively across a finely-crafted tome. The angel seems to be rather annoyed but then his eyes settle on Crowley and a slight smile replaces his frown.

“Oh Friedmar, dragging Crowley into our little dispute is entirely unnecessary,” he says quickly.

“Nonsense,” Friedmar decides as he shoves a cup into Crowley’s hand. “See, Crowley, we were talking about an Arthurian epic we are currently both reading, and we came across the word _minnediep_ -”

“Pardon?”

“ _Minnediep_ \- a stealer of love[4]. Now, do you think this is a bad thing or a good thing? Isn’t it courteous of a man to be discreet at his love?“

Crowley shrugs uncomfortably. He shouldn’t be getting into discussions like this. “I don’t think I’m an expert on that.”

“Oh, please Crowley, tell us what you think,” Aziraphale interjects quickly. “Is it a noble thing to give the love someone desires in secret? Or do you think it wrong?”

There’s a pause, during which Crowley can hear the rush of his own blood in his ears. He’s not one for answering questions, not questions like _that_ , metaphorical and yet so real. Aziraphale’s gaze is trained on him, both questioning and challenging.

“I’m always one for secrecy. Don’t you think it’s a thrill?” he says, carefully evading the matter at hand.

Aziraphale’s piercing look does not waver. “That was not the object of my question.”

“Then I think it’s noble to give, especially when you keep doing it even though it won’t ever get you anywhere,” Crowley spits. It’s more than he should say, by all means, and it hits too close to home.

“An act of kindness, then!” Friedmar interjects and claps his hands, elated to find a partner in crime, or rather, in literary analysis. “But I suppose you think it an insolence, Meister Aziraphale?”

“No, not at all,” the angel says but he does not pay Friedmar any attention.

Instead, his eyes remain fixed on Crowley. His expression shifts between the earnest interest of a scholar and something else entirely, something deep and unnameable. Restless.

“I think,” the angel continues. “That it is very painful, at least for one partner, if they can give but never receive. That it’s heartbreaking if you allow yourself a bit of clandestine happiness but are forced to hide at any other time. Therefore, the concept of a _minnediep_ is inherently bad.”

Friedmar forces a smile and a rather awkward laugh, before calling out to one of his pages to refill their wine glasses. He waits for the silence to dissolve itself, but his two guests are still exchanging a look that he himself doesn’t understand, tense and yet somehow _challenging_ all the same.

“Well,” he says. “Aren’t I glad that this is only a hypothetical situation. No need to get riled up about it, really.”

“That’s right,” Crowley sneers, his gaze still fixed on Aziraphale’s face. “I’ve never allowed my heart to crack and I’m sure you haven’t either.”

Friedmar claps him on the back at that. “Terrific. Let’s have some more wine.”

Sometimes, Friedmar thinks, he feels like there’s something _off_ about the man in his scriptorium, who will copy down the oddest assortments of books. It’s almost as though whenever he says so much as a single word, he hides something behind it, like there’s a darkness that follows his very heart. And yet, he’s a godsent gift, really, enriching his library with knowledge and poetry both.

The thing is, Friedmar almost feels sorry for him, although he doesn’t understand _why_.

* * *

Crowley takes the next opportunity to leave the two of them behind. He can’t stand it sometimes, this forced happiness of the humans around him. It’s unfair, that’s what it is, this constant smiling and dancing around the things one really wants to talk about and this teasing at the fact that there might be another layer between those words, strung together in an undeniably taut way and - all right, maybe it’s not the humans Crowley’s problem lies with. He hopes that there will be a century in which he can say whatever’s on his mind, or a place, anything really.

Society is stiff in these places, trying so hard to emulate the likes of nobility, and Aziraphale hides behind it like a shield.

It comes as a surprise to him to find a note on top of his beddings a few days later - Friedmar is always too kind, assigning him his own chambers whenever he stops by for a visit - asking him to come and visit the library. It’s more than Aziraphale would usually do, leave behind something palpable. A call for him.

* * *

“Look, I thought you might enjoy this,” the angel says, holding a large book in his hands. It is wrapped in fine leather, a heavy format that is usually reserved for precious bibles. “It is a not exactly a new romance, but Friedmar had it commissioned recently.”

“You know I don’t read books.” Still, he cannot help himself, he has to catch a quick look at the cover, searching for a title in vain. Right, they haven’t really come up with that yet, have they? It’s too easy when you put names on things.

“Well, you might like this one anyway. A certain Heinrich von Veldeke wrote it, and apart from being an utter delight, it might remind you of the old times in Rome.”

“Will it?”

He can’t help noticing the glint in the angel’s eyes, so he takes the tome from him and flips it open. The first page is gloriously illustrated with images of two knights, riding against each other in battle, and men within what Crowley can only presume is meant to be a boat sailing towards a city. If he’s being honest with himself, they look promising.

Aziraphale smiles. “It retells the story of Aeneas - you must certainly remember Virgil - but the author has taken some, well, liberties. You will see. It doesn’t sound very Roman at all in places but a bit of it is still there, the gods and everything.”

Crowley does, in fact, remember Virgil. He was quite the rage back then, even when he was still alive. One of those few authors that don’t have to die to make it big. Of course, he’d had wealthy patrons and influential friends, but that didn’t dull the glory of his work. Really, it was marvellous to see how the humans had latched onto his epic, trying to find self-expression in the words of a poet telling an age-old story that wasn’t even, per se, Roman, and turning it into the emotional backbone of a nation. Even now, some proud emperors claim to descend from this very Aeneas and his house, Romulus and Caesar and Augustus and even Nero. Crowley has known some of the fellows and he rather wishes he hadn’t.

“You see, he still fights Turnus, the _katabasis_[5] is there and he even falls in love with Dido, although admittedly, it’s rather stylised to fit contemporary ideas. But I wouldn’t want to spoil your fun, so I’d best… be quiet on that matter.”

Aziraphale nods at that, as if to underline his point to himself. It’s an odd little movement but Crowley knows it well by now.

* * *

Much to Crowley’s own surprise, he finds himself devouring the story. He doesn’t exactly like the changes, moralising here and christianising there, and he knows the story far too well by now to be surprised, but there’s something about it that just sends him right back to Rome, to warm nights in the circles of the upper-class where the poets read straight from their own manuscripts, to the poor children playing in the gutters of the suburra, and claiming to be Aeneas and Turnus in turns, to the grammar school students passing through the fora reciting and singing of arms and men.

But just some thousand verses in, he begins to notice something else. While Dido suffers of her unrequited love, he feels himself reminded of the conversation they had a fortnight ago, if requited love could be painful.

Perhaps, Aziraphale wanted to give proof of his point of view. Aeneas certainly could be considered the kind of horrible person to set an example of exploiting a woman for her love, although, eventually, that is less his own fault than the fault of the gods, pointing him towards his ever-fixed destiny. There is, of course, another possibility as to _why_ Aziraphale would point him towards this particular book, but it is one that he shouldn’t even start thinking about.

Instead, Crowley buries himself in flowery descriptions of hunting clothes and a storm, a beautiful place beneath a tree, a shelter from the rain and from prying people’s view. He knows what’s about to happen, and yet the sentence still makes him uneasy.

 _Do was diu frôwe Dido//beidiu trurich unde fro_.

_So the Lady Dido was//at once saddened and rejoiced._

* * *

The book is read and returned in silence, not into the angel’s caring hands but left at another scriptor’s desk. Slightly more than two weeks have passed by now, and Crowley knows that he will have to leave soon. He has received an assignment that he _really_ shouldn’t postpone even further, an influential Lord on the cusp to succumbing to evil. These days, you never can tell how long the targets of your temptations will be around before another pope calls for another war or a plague spreads or they are sent off to lead a contemplative life in a monastery and, thank you very much, that is not a place Crowley would endeavour to visit.

Call it coincidence or call it bound to happen, considering his innate demonic tendency to lurk, but Aziraphale happens upon him on the last day of his stay, ambling around the herbary. The angel doesn’t address him at first; instead he kneels down by the rosemary and begins plucking it, breaking the stems and tugging off the fragile blue flowers.

“You’re leaving, then?” he asks a few moments later.

“Yeah,” Crowley answers, watching idly as Aziraphale’s hands tear the stems apart.

“Would you… that is… I think you should see the heath before you leave. There’s a nice...a nice tree.”

Under any given circumstance, Crowley would wonder what’s so special about a tree, any circumstance except this. He knows that it’s a meeting point, far away enough from the castle to warrant privacy, a place where the youths go to indulge in excessive drinking and other things their parents would not approve of.

“Think I’ll go and take a look at it tonight. Maybe after dinner,” he says and listens closely when Aziraphale responds.

All the angel says is “Splendid.”

It sounds tired and almost a little defeated.

* * *

Crowley wonders. He wonders as he gathers his belongings, wonders as he wraps himself up in his woollen cloak and heads through the gate. If Aziraphale is suggesting that they might meet out there, on the heath, there’s little chance he isn’t aware of the meaning inherent to places like this, and it makes Crowley dizzy. The angel has read enough Walther to know about _loci amoeni_ , pleasant places, vibrant with their natural beauty, and with the humanity that inhabits them.

And yet, this cannot possibly be what he’s implying. There are no clandestine meetings under a green canopy of leaves, by the side of a trickling rivulet washing its fallen leaves away.

There is indeed no rivulet, no singing birds, no lilies and roses by the bend of a brook. Just a tree, a willow with its low-hanging branches, dark against the setting sun. A willow, and a silhouette standing by it, bright in the shadows of the leaves, wrapped in a cream-coloured cloak that seems to catch the last bits of light, like a torch driven into the ground, calling out _Here I am. Come find me._ When Crowley is nearly there, the angel waves at him.

The heather is a meaningful place, so Crowley will find meaning in it.

“You made it”, Aziraphale says. “I was afraid you wouldn’t.”

“Why’d you think that?” Crowley asks and for a moment, he could almost swear that there’s a tremor to Aziraphale’s voice.

“You have to leave as soon as possible.” Yes, there’s definitely a tremble to it, a tinge of fear. Crowley has heard it before. “I shouldn’t be telling you this but I’ve had word from head office, another crusade is commencing. You need to get your temptation done immediately - Lord Neidhard is rallying troops and he will leave for the Holy Land within the next days, if he hasn’t left already.”

Crowley needs a moment to let that knowledge sink in, curl around his brain and poison the joy that the past months have brought him.

“So soon? They _won_ the last one.”

Aziraphale is wringing his hands in desperation. Perhaps the graveness of the situation has not yet occurred to Crowley, but Aziraphale seems absolutely wretched. 

“Jerusalem has been captured again a few years ago, the peace cannot be restored by this point. Troops are being raised this very moment, you must believe me. Ask Friedmar if you will, he is thinking of sending men of his own.”

“Will they send you over again?”

Crowley hopes that they won’t but Heaven is a cruel place, where kindness has never reached the value of a firm decision. He remembers the dangers of the first crusade, but back then, they had fought side by side, another perverted joke of the universe, sending an angel and a demon to fight in the name of a mortal conception of God. It has saved him often, having an angel at his back, not that he ever admitted to it.

“No,” Aziraphale says and a sigh escapes him. “They want me to stay here - well, not here exactly. I’m supposed to leave for Magdeburg within the month and bless a local woman with divine inspiration.” He wrings his hands nervously. “All I ask of you is to get your temptation covered swiftly, lest you have to follow him all the way to the Holy Land.”

Crowley can’t help feeling that they’re balancing on the edge of a knife. There must be something else to this, something that Crowley cannot grasp yet.

“What’s it to you?” he asks and his tone is more challenging than he feels. “You’re safe here, you don’t have to worry about me.”

“But I do.” Aziraphale remains silent for a moment, twists the golden ring on his hand. He usually does that when an uncomfortable conversation is at hand. When he clears his throat, he avoids Crowley’s eyes but he continues nonetheless. “I don’t want you to get harmed if you can avoid it. It’s far too easy being discorporated in the war.”

“I know that. You think I want to go there and get myself killed?”

Crowley shakes his head and fists his hands into the fabric of his cloak. Pockets are not yet a thing and it irritates him. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, doesn’t have jewellery to fidget with.

“Will they send you back if you get discorporated?” the angel asks reluctantly.

“I don’t know,” Crowley says and at this point, his voice softens. So does his heart, for he finally understands the reason for their meeting. “I’ve never actually been discorporated. Is that why you wanted to meet me?”

“Yes. No. In a way - look, I am worried. I’m worried that I won’t see you again, for hundreds of years, possibly. Crowley, what if they _keep_ you down there?”

If Crowley were to think about it, he might come to the conclusion that his performance reviews haven’t been great in the past decades and that he runs a very real chance of getting into trouble downstairs. The chance that he misses Neidhard becomes more likely by the hour and tracking people travelling off the roads is a hard task, even for a demon. An entire group of crusaders could go missing, and no-one would find out for years. It doesn’t bear thinking about. He must complete his task, so he will.

“They won’t,” he says. “They won’t keep me because I won’t get discorporated. It’s as simple as that.”

And it really is, the angel is just worrying himself without measure.

Aziraphale nods, but the tension in his shoulders is still visible, even underneath layers of cloak and tunics. “I want to give you something. Just- just in case.”

Crowley wonders. What could the angel give to him? A map of the roadside, a pouch, a letter to recommend him to some Lord or another? None of those things are unheard of, they have exchanged them on multiple occasions in the few centuries since their Arrangement began.

“You - you don’t have to take it, but I don’t think you have anyone else to - to give you something like this and - oh, I don’t know what I’m thinking. I’m being silly,” Aziraphale mumbles and runs a hand over his face.

“What are you talking about, angel?”

“ _Kleinoete_ ,” the angel says, and turns away.

“ _Kleinoete_?” Crowley asks, incredulous. The knowledge has to sink in for a moment. “You mean, what the princess gives to the knight on his way to slay a dragon. Or win a tournament. Or prove himself at King Arthur’s court.”

“Or on his way to a dangerous mission. If you’ll have it, that is.”

Aziraphale’s hands tremble as he reaches up to his shoulder and undoes the brooch that holds the folds of his cloak together. It’s a small ring with a pin running through it, simple and yet elegant, made of gold and studded with tiny pearls and blue-tinted glass. A personal object, so in style with the angel’s aesthetic that he may even have commissioned it himself.

Aziraphale forces a smile. “No obligations, just… a keepsake.”

Nobody has ever offered Crowley a good luck charm before. It definitely does not number among the kind of objects they have exchanged before. This has no practical use to Crowley, he has pins of his own, it is merely beautiful and fragile and personal. He feels like his throat has gone dry and something in his chest constricts without his permission.

“I’ll have it, ‘course I will. It’s bad luck not taking a keepsake.”

Aziraphale laughs, but it is nothing like the bright chiming sound he is too accustomed to. There’s a harsh and almost teary sound to it. “Is it? I’ve never heard that before.”

“Yeah. It’s a new proverb,” Crowley says and he feels stupid doing so but it makes the angel smile and that’s all that matters, that the slope of his shoulders softens and that his jittery nerves are calmed.

“Well then”, Aziraphale mumbles.

It seems that he’s scrambling for words, but then he recollects himself and holds out the brooch towards Crowley, firm in his grip. Crowley hesitates for a moment, then he reaches out.

Their fingers don’t brush, like he expected them to. He clasps his hand around the keepsake and Aziraphale doesn’t let go, holding on despite the tenseness that has returned to his hands. The brooch is so small between their palms, he could almost forget that it rests there at all. Aziraphale’s hand is warm and rougher than it would suit an angel as soft as him, worn by thousands of parchment pages and darkened by ink. It sets something ablaze in Crowley’s heart and, traitorous thing that it is, it wants more, to never let go and hold the angel there forever, or at least until the dawn begins to rise over the heath and tints the canopy above them in oranges and golds.

The terrible thing about it is not that Aziraphale lets go eventually, but that he gently turns over their hands and wraps Crowley’s fingers around the brooch, one by one, until they shelter the pin from view. When Crowley finally forces himself to look up, he is greeted by a warm smile on the angel’s lips. It’s beautiful.

“I read a passage in a manuscript yesterday,” Aziraphale says and he rolls his shoulders, as he often does when he tries to gather the courage to say something. “It made me think of you.”

A not entirely unpleasant prickling travels across Crowley’s shoulders and down his spine. If anxiety had a well-meaning, kinder brother, this would be it.

“Then tell me,” he says, despite his better knowledge.

Aziraphale’s smile fades and he lets go of Crowley’s hand. His expression hardens and even though his gaze remains fixed on the demon’s face, every trace of nervosity fades from his posture. He watches as Crowley’s unsteady hands pin the brooch to his own cloak and clears his throat.

“ _Hâr du triuwe und stætekeit,_ ” he begins and Crowley could already curse himself. _“Sô bin ich sîn âne angest gar//daz mir iemer herzeleit//mit dînem willen widervar_[6]. I know that I shouldn’t but-”

“Don’t apologise,” Crowley interrupts. There’s no tremble to it, nothing to betray that he shouldn’t say the words. He cannot bear the idea of Aziraphale taking them back, regardless of the fact that they aren’t his, that they merely inspired a thought and not necessarily a feeling. Let him revel in the idea of a false hope, a false promise, as is fit for a demon.

“I can’t promise you anything but you _know-_ ”

Crowley doesn’t finish the sentence. What could he say that encompasses the loyalty he wants to give Aziraphale, the gentleness with which he wants to give it, all other loyalties be damned? He must know, he simply must, there are no words-

“Darling,” Aziraphale says and it’s one word that pushes him over the edge.

His hands are wrapped around the angel before he can talk himself out of it, holding on tight to the softness of his waist and the shoulders covered in wool far too fine to become a scribe. Aziraphale holds him close, then his hand moves up and he cups his cheek, gently, and for a moment, the unspoken question hangs between them, before the walls they have built between them come crashing down.

The angel is kissing him, a tender brush of lips, lips that he hasn’t imagined to be this warm, this soft, this welcoming. The sparks in his chest become stronger, grow into a full, all encompassing flame, but it could never be as warm as the skin of the angel against his. Crowley sinks his hands into Aziraphale’s cloak, his hair, holding on, holding close. He can barely believe this is happening.

Aziraphale’s mouth moves against his, gentle but determined. It’s not a single kiss, more like a thousand kisses threaded into one. Crowley takes the angel’s face into his hands and Aziraphale hums contentedly. Crowley makes use of this, this tender mouth that’s offered to him, and gently grazes his teeth over Aziraphale’s lower lip. It’s an odd sensation, being able to feel him so close, closer than close even, and he notices the lingering sweetness of the honey cake served after dinner. And above all, he feels the love that radiates from Aziraphale, made so clear that it cannot remain unnoticed, not even by a demon.

And just a moment later, Aziraphale breaks from him, his brows tightly knit together. His lower lip trembles, flushed deep pink from their kiss.

“We shouldn’t,” he says, his hands still clinging to Crowley’s tunic, tight and sharp like claws.

Crowley knows that, he has been telling himself this very thing at least since a night at a Roman _thermopolium_ , drinking cheap wine to water down the taste of expensive oysters. A roadside restaurant that’s open until dawn and an angel’s bright laughter. But now that he knows what it’s like to have Aziraphale in his arms, he doesn’t ever want it to stop.

And he’s a demon, temptation is his job, the very essence of his being, doesn’t matter what’s right, what’s wrong.

“It doesn’t matter. No-one will ever know.”

Aziraphale shakes his head and lets out a heavy sigh. “You have to leave.” - and yet, he doesn’t let go. He’s still holding on, as though his hands could change the course of the world. Perhaps they will someday, but not now, not today, not for them.

“I will, as soon as the sun rises,” Crowley says, and then because he can’t help it: “Don’t you worry.”

The angel gazes at him, an odd, indecipherable look in his eyes. A silent moment passes, then Aziraphale moves his hands from Crowley’s chest, wraps his arms around him instead and holds him close, and it’s warmth and comfort, all over again.

“I don’t want you to go,” he whispers against Crowley’s neck, his breath warm on his skin.

“I know,” Crowley mutters as he kisses his hair.

They remain like that for a while, caught up in the illusion of timelessness, of a world where no sides exist, just the vast and endless night sky above them. When Aziraphale finally lets go of him, there’s a smile on his face, tentative and full of forced cheer.

“You- you’ve put it on all crooked,” he says, gently. “Let me fix it for you.”

So he does. His hands fuss with the brooch, open it and gather the fabric beneath it, coarse black wool, pin it back into place, but his eyes remain fixed on Crowley’s face. They’re strangely grey in the moonlight.

“There you go,” he whispers and presses a kiss to Crowley’s cheek.

This time, the distance between them is wider when Aziraphale lets go. It’s an opportunity, and although it’s not a desirable one, Crowley is well aware that he should take it now, before it becomes more painful than it already has to be.

“Well then,” he says and for lack of other words, “Goodbye.”

Aziraphale is steady this time, and determined, when he kisses Crowley on the lips, gently and sweetly.

“Farewell, Crowley.”

With that final word, Aziraphale turns away and swiftly heads towards Friedmar’s castle, where a candlelit scriptorium awaits him, lonely and drafty and cold. His silhouette, blessed white, it’s always the same with that angel, is sharp against the dark heath and Crowley watches him leave, waiting as he always does. Never be seen together, not even by the guard at the gate, not even if he’s already seen you leave.

* * *

Crowley does end up going to war. He cannot catch Neidhard on time, so he follows him to the port, where he barely catches the ship headed for Cyprus. The passage takes long enough to win the lord over and take a few of his men down with him, souls won for Hell, good work, Crowley. A few days after they land in Cyprus, Neidhart contracts a fever. Crowley remains by his side, ensures that there’s no last minute turn-around. He gets a new missive from Hell, telling him he’s done an okay job and sending him off towards the Holy Land, since he’s already halfway there.

The thing is, the crusade never makes it to Jerusalem. After initial success in Egypt, the Sultan beats the Christian troops in a devastating battle and the French King is captured before they can safely retreat.

It takes Crowley quite a while to get back, taking a detour through the riotous North of France, where farmers are taking up arms under the guise of coming to their King’s aid. By the time he reaches Friedmar’s castle, he’s no longer welcome there. Friedmar himself has gone South with the emperor’s troops and his distrustful, cold wife keeps Friedmar’s friends far away.

So Crowley goes to Magdeburg next, where he hopes to find an angel inspiring kindness in people according to the missive he mentioned. He asks the locals, hopes to find a trace of him. They tell him about a stranger dressed in white who came to town three years ago, spreading words of kindness and devotion to faith, but he left a few months back. They say he went to France, leaving nothing behind but a note.

 _Come find me at Anjou_ , it reads, so Crowley does.

Only a woman remains in Magdeburg, writing inspired with divine knowledge, while people call to burn her works. Ascribe it to demonic influence, if you will, or to human folly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I based this around two concepts: epic poetry and minnesang.
> 
> Epic poetry was a major form of literature, which usually retold stories of ancient heroes or Arthurian knights. A major element of it were courtly romances, which often led to the conflict of the story.
> 
> [1] Minnesang is a courtly form of medieval love poetry, where many tropes such as clandestine meetings on the heath or floriography are used. Walther von der Vogelweide was a 12th-13th century poet who wrote minnesang and political poems.
> 
> [2] A big part of medieval tradition was the so-called _aventiure_ , which detailed the adventures of the hero, be it slaying beasts or fighting other knights.
> 
> [3] _Meister_ was a title used to address a learned man who had studied the so-called free arts.
> 
> [4] The concept of a _minnediep_ was considered positively in medieval literature. Being subtle about love was considered an ideal, since expressions of (courtly) love were, at least in literature, placed under strict rules and often one-sided.
> 
> [5] The epic that Aziraphale recommends to Crowley is the _Eneasroman_ , one of the earliest German courtly epics. A major part of it is the katabasis, where the hero Eneas descends to the underworld.
> 
> [6] _If you have loyalty and constancy, //then I am yours without any fear at all //that I should ever pain of heart//through your willingness receive._ The poem Aziraphale quotes is Walther von der Vogelweide's "Herzeliebes frouwelin".


	2. Stolen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley finds Aziraphale at Angers. The angel is selling books and they both have enough idle time to spend together, as long as they stay hidden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to my beta akinmytua and to Janthony, who fired enough tropes at me to warrant chapter 2.

_frou Minne, wie tuot ir sô, //daz ir den trûrgen machet vrô//mit kurze wernder fröude?_ _(Parzival 291, 1-3)_

_Lady Love, why do you make it so//that you turn the sad one happy//with short lived joy?_

There’s so much colour in Angers. Blue is the sky above the city, yellow are the awnings of the marketplace, orange are the robes of a travelling merchant. Spices and sugar are sold, reds and pinks and browns, saffron and pepper. The city is bustling with life. Even considering that it had been conquered a few decades ago, it had lost none of its pride. Kings have been born in this county, others have built their castles here, and students flock the town, ready to ask questions about philosophy, the law and maybe – if they dare to – even God.

It's taken Crowley quite a while to get here. Travelling was rough on the wintery road, and yet it all seems forgotten, like the image of a distant past, with the life of the city before him.

He asks a merchant woman for directions. The first time he has heard gossip about the blonde man in his white cloak was three days away from Angers, in a lousy excuse of a tavern. They spoke loudly, laughed about the fussy fool who imagined making a fortune out of _books_. Books of all things, imagine! Crowley had listened.

Two days later, a mother talked to an elderly man on the green outside the town, balancing a child on her hip. She talked of the marvels her neighbour had worked on her little one's fever, surely something he had read in those clever tomes of his. He should really see him and ask him for a remedy to his gout, just down the High Street by the well.

So on the third day, Crowley found himself asking for the well and the odd, crooked building where the strange scholar is supposed to live. The merchant woman points him there with a smile on her face and bids him to give her thanks for helping with her broken cart. When he stops in front of the heavy, worn door however, a handwritten note states that the shop is closed until further notice.

Crowley stands there for a few moments, feels dumbfounded. Has he really come so far only to miss the angel once again? If he’s gone travelling, it might take months until he returns and Crowley doesn’t want to waste that much time. He shoves his hands into the folds of his dark surcoat and paces the street. The snowy mud wets his shoes, lets the winter’s cool sink in further. If he doesn’t want to get too cold, he should find a place to stay, with a fireplace and maybe a cup of hot mead... 

“Well, shit,” Crowley concludes. This hasn’t gone well so far.

A young man behind him clears his throat. “Are you perhaps looking for Aziraphale? The shop is open but you have to make an appointment. Just knock and ask him.”

“Ah,” Crowley says. “Odd way to keep a shop going.”

The stranger laughs. “Well, odd man, odd shop. Goodbye then.”

Crowley waits another moment, then he walks back down the street and knocks on the heavy door. Indeed, it only takes a second and a familiar voice is calling back to him.

“I’ll be there in a moment, come in!”

It sounds more like _Go away_ but that doesn’t deter Crowley. The door creaks when he enters, and a sudden warmth encases him, filled with the scent of parchment and old wood. There’s something overwhelming and uncomfortable to it, but after the drenched cold of the winter, it’s a pleasant surprise. Footsteps sound heavy on the floorboards above him, then Aziraphale’s figure appears on the staircase connecting the shop and the living rooms.

The angel’s face lights up with joy - unguarded, a rare sight - when he sees Crowley among the books.

“Crowley, how nice to see you! You received my message, then?”

Crowley nods and for a moment, he considers slipping a hand past the buttons of his surcoat[1] and pulling the note from the pouch affixed to his belt; he has kept it, of course he has. There are so few things he has to remind him of the angel, nothing more than a scrap of parchment and a keepsake. But he doesn’t do it, doesn’t allow himself to show this weakness of his.

“‘Course I did,” he says instead and tries his best to keep that bright feeling of joy bubbling beneath the surface contained.

“So that means” – Aziraphale smiles as he takes a few steps closer – “that you went to Magdeburg to find me.”

“I did. What are you doing here, then?”

“Well, my work at Magdeburg was done and head office said _Spread some piety in France_ , so I figured this might be a nice place to start.”

“Selling books?”

“There’s a school of law and a school of theology here, they need their books, and the young students are far more open minded than the old. Give them the right book at the right time and they might think about the right thing.”

“Aren’t you afraid that will make them question God, reading all those books?” Crowley says and there’s a teasing undertone to his voice.

He slips out of his surcoat and the angel takes it, draping it across a nearby chair with all the care in the world, as if it were made of finest silk and not coarse wind- and war-roughened wool.

“I don’t think so at all,” Aziraphale says. It’s a token defence against a token critique. “It might help them incorporate Her into their lives, give them a more… modern lens, if that’s what they need. It’s not like I am selling them some unsavoury fabliaux[2]. Come, look at this book, it’s beautiful.”

Crowley bites back a remark about _unsavoury_ being entirely up to the reader’s point of view and follows Aziraphale across the room to the bookrest. A manuscript rests there, opened to a page somewhere in the middle. The handwriting is clean and it’s easily legible, telling the story of a virtuous king falling for the temptation of a beautiful woman ( _water trickling down her shoulder when they first meet, same old, same old_ ).

“Looks neat,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale steps up behind him and gently lays a hand on his waist. His body is soft and warm, fingers ever so gently pressing against the fabric of his tunic. His chin rests just above the sharp line of his shoulder. It lets a certain nervosity boil up in his innermost heart, an anticipation of what might happen. He has hoped that things might continue the way they were right before he left, but that was always just one of many the possibilities he considered, denial the first and foremost of them. Years have passed and yet it seems that nothing has changed, that there’s still something between them that draws them towards each other.

“It’s a shame that I don’t understand a single word of it,” Aziraphale mumbles and it’s so painfully clear that his thoughts are not with the book.

“You don’t?”

Crowley runs his hand over the page, smoothed parchment, black and red ink under his hands. It will fade, it will roughen up and crack, while he will go on unchanged, the both of them, really. He flips through the pages and finds a different story: King Solomon and his descent into a well, where he shall encounter a demon[3].

Aziraphale gives a slightly uncomfortable laugh. “I’m afraid it’s in French. There’s only so many languages one can learn.”

“You live in France and don’t speak any French? How do you talk to your customers?”

Could he cut himself on the pages? Let blood drip over romance and wise council alike, soak the text, soil the sheet? He flips another page, feels it between his fingertips. It's thick but it will wear down with time.

“I have a dictionary - well, it’s more like a conversational guide. _What do you want? Where are you going?_ and such like.”

An illustration. The king on his throne, his face cold, his beard blonde, a jewel in his hand. On the steps of his throne, further down, a woman in fine garments and a crown. ( _It's a retelling, which means certain things can be crossed out. The gifts the Queen of Saba bore to Solomon, let her be nothing but a taker of things, a foil to further his glory._ )

His hand trails the lines of it ( _red, blue, green_ ) until he reaches the edge of the page, lets his palm slip over the text block. He can feel the juts and edges of the seven signatures, sown together at the back, hidden behind leather binding. The impressions of it are still buzzing underneath his skin when his hand comes to rest on the desk. A moment later, Aziraphale's palm is covering it (roughened by leather and dust, yet gentle, so gentle and soft), his thumb tenderly rubbing circles across his knuckles.

( _It’s a retelling and that means you can ensure that Solomon doesn’t fall out of favour with God. Flip the page and see, he’s pure as he always used to be._ )

"Crowley," Aziraphale says, voice low.

His breath is ghosting over Crowley's cheek; so close, so close. His chin is resting on Crowley's shoulder and it can't be comfortable, not with the joints connecting his bones, pointy and sharp even through his clothes.

Crowley turns his head and for a moment, their noses brush. It's a tender thing, he shouldn't enjoy it so much and yet- yet there's a voice in him that starts to sing at the contact, that makes him wish that he could wake up next to him every day, turn this into the first thing he does each morning. And then Aziraphale kisses him, a benediction against his cold, weather-worn mouth. It starts chaste and gentle, a soft pressure against his lips. The angel's fingers tighten on his waist and he feels them guide him, turn him into an embrace. He raises his hand to Aziraphale's cheek, holds it there, steady. There's a smile on Aziraphale's lips and Crowley wants to touch it, so he kisses the corners of his mouth. He can not only hear the angel's chuckle but feel it, too, against his ribs and his palm and his lips. Aziraphale kisses him again, open-mouthed, and it's all that he could ask for, the tenderness of the last time revisited, but without the pain of parting. Soft, tender, warm, that's what this is instead. Aziraphale's hand is still on his, and he slowly entangles their fingers on the table. They rest there, next to parchment and leather, lines in red, blue and green. Even when they break apart, their hands remain, and so do their smiles.

"Did you have trouble finding me?" Aziraphale asks.

"Anjou is big, figured you’d be in Angers, though,” Crowley says and his voice shouldn’t sound so soft, it really shouldn’t. “You like having people around, don't you?"

"Not particularly, but there's something about the liveliness of the city. And of course, there's many blessings to do." Aziraphale’s smile fades suddenly. “Apropos blessings, I _really_ should get going. There’s an orphanage I promised to visit today and I should see to it before nightfall.”

A moment’s silence passes while he picks up Crowley’s surcoat again and hands it back to him. “I assume you’ll be around, then?”

“For a while, yeah,” Crowley decides. In a city as lively as this one, there’s a large potential for trouble, rich nobles just begging for a dash more greed, merchants on the way up that fall victim to pride too easily, general shenanigans.

“Well, do come visit sometime. I appreciate your company,” Aziraphale says even as he ushers Crowley out the door.

The warmth of him remains behind, traces along Crowley’s body, even as the biting breeze gets stronger, blowing through the street and tugging at his curls.

* * *

“Do you still have my brooch?” Aziraphale asks a few days later over dinner.

The inn they’re at is a quaint, warm little place, buzzing with the background hum of humans having conversations, drinking and making music. They’re sitting in the most quiet corner but that doesn’t mean much.

“‘Course I do. You want it back?” Crowley tries not to let his disappointment show in his voice.

“Not at all! I was just hoping you hadn’t lost it.” Aziraphale swallows the last bite of his smoked fish and tries to keep the slightly irritated frown from his face.

“Well if you’d given me something that’s actually attachable to armour there wouldn’t even be a _chance_ of losing it.”

“I’m sorry I don’t always have a ribbon on my clothes, my bad.” His voice is dripping with sarcasm, even as he puts his plate aside. “I should have known beforehand that a _brooch_ wouldn’t be up to your standards.”

“That’s not what I meant-” Crowley begins, but Aziraphale interrupts him.

“Should I have detached my sleeve? Taken off my cord belt?”

The way he’s looking at him, head tilted slightly and eyebrow raised - there’s a bit of a challenge in it and it’s beautiful. He doesn’t know what to say except for a monosyllabic mumble, non-committal as usual, and for a moment, he fears he could blush, at his own ineptness, Aziraphale’s gorgeous face and the thought of going to war with his belt under his armour, holding together the facade of a human he tries so hard to pass as.

“It’s all right Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “I’m not mad. I simply wanted to know.”

He reaches out and their fingertips brush ever so gently across the table. It will take Crowley another long while to get accustomed to that, if he ever gets the chance. He knows fully well that this here can only be a temporary thing. There will be another missive, a blessing or a temptation, that will command either of them to leave, be it next month, next year or maybe even tomorrow. And then, there’s always the danger of being found out. The Arrangement has remained covered for two hundred years now but this is something else, something bigger and hiding it is complicated. Hearts are complicated. Sometimes he feels like even cutting them out wouldn’t change their power, past emotions’ chains just as strong as current ones.

“Do you think you could come to mine later?” Aziraphale asks, even as he swiftly withdraws his hand. “I should very much like to kiss you, but-”

_Never in public. Not where we can be found out._

* * *

Aziraphale leaves first, when he notices the innkeeper giving him an amused look. It must be obvious to him, he sees enough besotted couples hidden away in corners where no-one can hear them.

A quarter of an hour later, Crowley knocks on Aziraphale’s door, note unheeded. The angel immediately pulls him inside, fisting his hands into his surcoat, and crowds him against the door. He kisses him without hesitation, with nothing but the relief of a wait being over. He kisses his mouth, his cheek, his jaw and it’s tender, like this is the thing he wants to do forever, with every ounce of care he can muster.

Crowley couldn’t say how long they stay there, embracing against the door, but at some point, they separate, move over to the bench before the fireplace. It keeps the cold away, even if that is the only comfort it offers. Crowley remembers winters spent down South, where snow is a rarity and the sun tries a bit harder to warm the many corners of the Earth. Aziraphale nudges him softly and passes him a cup of heated mead.

“I’m sorry I left in such a rush earlier. I suspect Josse was catching on,” Aziraphale says as their fingers brush.

“That’s fair.” Crowley himself doesn’t know if he means the leaving or the catching on but he suspects that it might be rather obvious sometimes, the way he’s mooning over the angel.

“Humans!” Aziraphale exclaims and settles on the bench next to him. “They notice nothing at all and yet they pick up on everything. It’s like they can _sense_ when they’re not supposed to know something and then they set about to find out.”

“Might have to do with the entire apple business, if you ask me.”

* * *

A fortnight later, a student drags snow into the saleroom. He shakes out his hood and walks over to the table decked in theological manuscripts. Crowley grins as he watches Aziraphale fret for a moment, then flip through his conversational guide.

The angel walks up to the customer, book hidden behind his back, and stumbles over his words in a broken French: _How can I help you_?

It seems that the student doesn’t notice Aziraphale’s discomfort with the language, since he starts to babble on and on about the kind of book he’s looking for, how sorry he is about disturbing their quiet and how inconsolable he is that he has forgotten the title. Crowley finds this very amusing. _He_ understands the student perfectly well but the angel is struggling to comprehend _anything_.

After an excruciating couple of minutes, the student realises that this will lead nowhere. He blushes with discomfort and tries again, in easier words, but that doesn’t change much. Crowley decides to help Aziraphale, so he clears his throat and interrupts the conversation.

“ _Linguam latinam loquerisne_[4]?” he asks and the young man nods fervently. Relief is written across his face and Crowley smirks. “There you go, angel.”

Aziraphale tries to give him a cross look, put out that he didn’t help him sooner, but there’s an underlying layer of gratefulness to it. The student repeats his request, looking for a book that proves that every statement in the bible can be contradicted by another one[5]. They figure out the title and author quickly and the customer leaves, happy with his purchase[6].

Crowley finally gets the chance to laugh and after a few moments, it even gets a chuckle out of Aziraphale and a promise to learn French, someday.

* * *

It’s the last promise Aziraphale makes in Angers.

The next morning, he and Crowley are sitting on the bench again, knee to knee, but this time, there’s no mead, no comfort of the fire. It’s just the cold; the cool shiver that does not come with snow but with the heart.

“I suppose I should have seen it coming. It was inevitable,” Aziraphale says, his eyes remaining fixed on the table across the room.

His brows tightly drawn together and there’s a line of worry around his mouth. Crowley wants to smooth them out, kiss them away, but he doesn’t have the energy to do so. It’s useless after all, so he looks away, focuses on the letter instead.

“I mean – it’s just a missive, a small but necessary contribution to the greater good,” Aziraphale continues. “When it is done, I can get – back here or – go anywhere else.”

Crowley nods, bites his lip, even though he doesn’t mean to. “Right. A minor inconvenience.”

“Exactly. No problem at all.”

That’s not true. If it were, his smile wouldn’t seem so forced. There wouldn’t be an underlying sadness. He shoulders wouldn’t be so hunched.

“Bet it’s going to be easy–,” Crowley says. He’s grasping for straws, trying to find _something_ positive about it.

“Oh, perfectly easy.”

“Well.”

An awkward silence threatens to fall between them. Of course, they both should have known that this was temporary at best and the weeks they had were far more than Crowley should ever have hoped for. Still, looking at the letter on the table feels like a slap to the face.

“I’ll miss you so badly, Crowley. I don’t want to wait years until we see each other again.”

Aziraphale isn’t looking at him. He isn’t looking at the letter either, just staring into the distance as though there was something that could change everything for the better if only he could catch it.

“Neither do I,” Crowley admits.

Aziraphale clears his throat and something shifts, a certain determination falling into place. “Frankly, I think it would be best to leave tomorrow. The sooner, the better. If you could sell the place for me-”

“Yeah. Just get out of here.”

It’s all he can do now. Letting go is the only kindness he can give.

( _And hasn’t it always been that way?_ )

* * *

They meet outside the city gates at the first light of dawn. Crowley feels himself oddly reminded of a clandestine meeting under a tree, at a different time of day. Aziraphale has a bag of books with him, the rest either left behind to sell or miracled into a chest that is supposed to follow him to wherever he will go next.

They’re on stolen time and they both know it.

“I suppose I should say goodbye now,” Aziraphale decides after a few moments of standing there, just looking at each other.

“Yeah,” Crowley says and his voice is low. “I’ve got something for you.”

“You don’t have to-,” Aziraphale starts, the stern look still on his face. He hasn’t worn a different one in the hours between now and yesterday, when he first saw the letter on the stoop before his door. 

“One doesn’t send one’s–” Crowley stops. _One’s what, exactly?_ This is getting embarrassing, and uncomfortable. Let’s try again: “You can’t go without a–”

Instead of trying for another useless string of words, he reaches up to the collar of his coat, where a small band holds the fabric together. It takes him two tries to undo it and pull it off, but when he does, it’s worth the slight struggle, for Aziraphale’s face lights up with joy.

“You have a keepsake for me?” the angel asks and Crowley notices a tinge of pink on his cheeks. It could be the cold.

The smile on his lips is soft and it reaches his eyes in a way that makes Crowley’s heart overflow with affection. Aziraphale takes the fabric from his hands and wraps it around the clasp on his own coat. He ties a knot, ensuring that it will not come undone on his way North. The ribbon is red, so dark against his bright tunic, like a stain. It doesn’t belong there, so very clearly and yet... Aziraphale seems so happy to have it, honoured even, and Crowley understands, he feels the same way whenever he attaches the angel’s brooch to his own clothes.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says and his voice is so soft that it makes something ache in Crowley.

Aziraphale gently puts a palm up to his cheek. He kisses his mouth, his cheek, his jaw and it isn’t tender, it’s rushed. The pain of parting infuses every second of it, turns it sour. Not even the bittersweet thought of a joyous reunion could lessen the stab of uncertainty.

“Well,” Aziraphale finally says, when his hands have gone cold and his lips have turned red. “Goodbye, Crowley.”

The words are said hushed and quickly, as though that could make them less painful.

( _Will it always be like this? Hiding, kissing, getting missives, leaving, reuniting? There’s no hope in that, and while hopelessness might fit a demon, it is not suitable for an angel, to hold on without hope._ )

“Go, then. There’s no point in hanging around here.”

Aziraphale nods, squares his shoulders and tightens his coat around his neck. He hesitates for another moment, then he clutches his bag to his chest and turns away, and it still hurts, although they both knew it was coming. Crowley watches as he walks down the road, certainty and determination taking over the further he moves away from Angers, gates and houses and books left behind.

And Crowley remembers something, something that makes his heart a little lighter. It’s almost like a promise.

_If you have loyalty and constancy//then I am yours without any fear at all //that I should ever pain of heart//through your willingness receive._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] The surcoat was an overcoat worn during the Middle Ages. It was usually worn without sleeves; however, they could be attached. It was closed with a brooch or a cord.
> 
> [2] Short, comic tales originating from France. They can often have satirical or bawdy contents.
> 
> [3] A story often retold in the Middle Ages. Solomon needs the council of the demon Asmodeus to acquire the means to complete the construction of the Temple, a wonderous stone or worm that can cut through all kinds of materials.
> 
> [4] “Do you speak Latin?”
> 
> [5] The book the student is looking for is “Sic et No” by Abelard, a treatise on this exact topic.
> 
> [6] Crowley will remember this at a later time, when the sight of a happy customer is a rare thing in Aziraphale’s Soho bookshop. He has his reasons for not selling books and Crowley strongly suspects that he is missing how attached people got to their books, rare and expensive as they were.


End file.
